Wednesday’s Whomping Willow

News’s in.

Jack Paar walked off the tonight show on this day in 1960. Japan became the fourth space power in 1970 with the launch of its first satellite. It’s Japan Foundation Day today – the anniversary of the traditional founding of Japan in 660BC.

Happy birthday Thomas Edison (1847).

EEye says it ain’t over yet. After revealing yesterday’s seven-month-old XP flaw yesterday, the security firm says there are seven more serious flaws that Microsoft has yet to patch, three of them critical. I’m thinking of shutting down my Windows machines for good at this point. Thank God for Mac and Linux.

An Apple SEC filing has revealed that the company is facing five class-action lawsuits saying it misrepresented the battery life on the iPod. Hunh? My original iPod is still going strong. LiON batteries don’t last forever, but I don’t remember Apple saying they did.

Cable company Comcast has just offered $66 billion to buy Disney outright. The unsolicited offer would make Comcast a rival to AOL Time Warner. Disney Chairman Michael Eisner had refused to enter discussions so Comcast is going directly to shareholders.

America Online may be liable for illegal posting of copyrighted material according to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals because the company did not offer an email address for reporting copyright violations. Harlan Ellison sued the online service for newsgroup postings of several of his short stories.

Bye bye Whitehouse.com. The venerable porno service which capitalizes on mistyped searches for the President’s web site has decided to call it quits after seven years. The owner is selling because he’s worried about kids taunting his kindergarten-bound son. How touching. What about all the school-age kids who went there by mistake over the years?

Doc Searls and David Weinberger are at it again. The co-authors of the inspired Cluetrain Manifesto have now published a site explaining what the Internet isn’t. Required reading for all suits who hope to make a buck off the ‘net.

I can’t see Microsoft hopping to fixing those other bugs anytime soon. It took over 200 days for that other patch. If they were to release seven patches, three of which are critical, it would raise additional fears about Microsoft’s security, and would also increase the numbers of users who “switch” to Mac/Linux. I’d consider the switch if more companies started to realize these security problems and start programming more games for the mac, and not just for Windows.

The Dakota County Sheriff in Hastings, Minnesota is posting mug shots and arrest records on the web for all the inmates in the county jail, convicted or not. Hey why not? They wouldn’t be in jail if they hadn’t done something wrong.
The huge problem with this is not all the people in jail have been tried and convicted. If he is only posting pictures
of people who have been convicted it would be ok but not the people waiting for trial. I assume you were being sarcastic
in your last words.
Zardoz

Any arrest of an adult is a matter of public record. Adding a mugshot and putting it online doesn’t really change much. The public scrutiny is supposed to prevent miscarriages of justice like the people being held in Guantanamo Bay without charges or access to attorneys.

Channel 354 was once a canâ€™t miss family network but has now sunk to a new all time low. I sit down with my 14 year old to watch The Screen Savers but instead get an unexpected vulgar surprise. Last night we tune in early waiting for your show to come on only to see the end on Unscrewed with Kevin Rose doing a segment on hacking a porn site to get *free porn* complete with a butt plug being tossed around the studio. It is bad enough that the hacking segments on your show are somehow deemed OK with a wink and silly half hearted disclaimer. Is your network that hard up for ratings that it would sandwich an abomination like Unscrewed between two family shows and promote stealing as if it were some harmless adolescent exploration? Say whatever you wish to make yourself feel better Leo but this is an act of desperation for ratings. Your Network is running promos to entice fans of X Play and Unscrewed to play an interactive game. Bring teenagers, pornography and stealing together? What an embarrassment! I have no choice but to block channel 354 from my home!

When some people’s iPod batteries last that much longer than others, something is wrong with the technology. I have a G3 iPod and it’s battery life between recharges is horrible too. I prefer performance over looks.

Regarding that Dakota County Sheriff in Hastings posting mug shots and arrest records on the web for all the inmates in the county jail, convicted or not. We had something similar happen locally a number of years ago but it involved a crime watch show on a local cable channel and not the web. The show was developed and hosted by a police captain on the local force who, like the sheriff, would display mug shots of both those convicted and those awaiting trail and additionally accompany them with a verbal commentary. It got really ugly and resulted in a lawsuit against both the city and the captain and ultimately lead to his dismissal from the force. My guess, it’s only a matter of time for that sheriff and web site.

Remind the good people using Virtual PC for Mac to update their Windows holes, too.
Maybe I should sue Sony because my CLIE PDA battery is kaput. Honestly, I hardly had it a year and the battery is shot. I haven’t used it that much, either. iPod going strong for road trips, so far. Did you hear Palm will be discontinuing Palm Desktop support for the Mac? There are workarounds, however. I have a certain word in mind for their action, but if I uttered it you’d probably ban me from the blog.http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/02/11.5.shtml
Steve, do what you must. The channel has taken a sharp turn and ratings hunger has a lot to do with it. After the Janet J. flash, it’s more proof the MTV generation is taking over the world. Imagine it five to ten years from now.

the more i hear about the internet the more i’m willing to accept my carpal tunnel from using these flat keyboards in the computer lab than trying to get my ever unhappy win xp laptop online.
i’m glad we didn’t celebrate any japanese holidays in class today. the last one we did was setsubun and i had thirty people yell at me in japanese and throw beans at me…